Untitled
by Crazy-Comet-97
Summary: Honestly, neither of them were expecting this, but then again, fate always has a funny way of playing with the companions of a time-travelling humanoid looking alien. (Sarah Jane Smith/Graham O'Brien)


He honestly didn't expect to find someone after he'd found Grace.

Truth be told, he was lucky he even landed her given he was in reality, supposed to be dead.

Cancer usually does that to a bloke he age and whatever he lands before, during and after, well that's just all you get normally. When his hand came up, he got Grace and for 3 years of his middle aged life, that and her grandson, Ryan, was all he needed.

When Grace had died, despite saving the world, it had hit him like a ton of bricks, the weight almost crushing him. Guilt, grief, pain, emotions he'd not felt for years suddenly shrouding him and making his anxiety, that only Grace and her spirit could usually quell, toxic.

If it wasn't for Ryan, his step-grandson and the whole space and time traveling thing, pretty Yaz or even the Doc, he polly wouldn't have held it together so well. Or at all, if he really wanted to go in deeper to his state at the time.

He thought that this, his new life, was now enough. Until he met her.

It was a chance meeting at best, a once in a lifetime thing.

She was sitting in the corner of one of the rooms on the oncology ward, his eye only taking her in passing as he chatted with Grace's old colleagues, having appeared briefly to attend a nurse awards ceremony and see an award in Grace's name be given.

It was nice to know they still remembered her in a way, despite the way she'd passed.

However on the way back towards the elevators, they had caught eyes and he had to stop dead in his tracks, unable to look away.

She was beautiful, obviously, but her eyes were saying something more.

Something rather familiar.

His feet already made the decision before his brain had. He had to go and talk to her.

She honestly didn't expect to find anyone after she'd gotten back to Earth.

With the Doctor leaving her when she was so young, becoming a journalist and putting herself into a career to adjust back to being a normal, regular, boring human was the only thing she could think about. Not love or companionship.

She hadn't cared much for it, not until she got Luke and Sky that was. Now her heart seemed to not be big enough, as it had included Rani and Maria, as well as several others.

It was also painfully broken since a couple years before when Alistair died and long before that with Harry passing on as well. She still sees Jo every so often, usually back from one of her many eco-warrior shenanigans and sometimes, she brings young Santiago along with her, but lately the only faces she's seen so far in this place have either be Luke, Sky, Clyde or numerous doctors she can barely remember the names of.

Cancer. Why on Earth (well, the universe to her) did it have to be cancer?

She had been through so many adventures, faced so many foes from Cybermen to Siltheen to Daleks to Sontarans, yet she had been taken ill by something so...well, human.

Of course, she was getting the best care possible, her small funding she'd saved up from her work in the field getting her in one of the best places and the best people for her care, but it seemed when she found herself looking out her window to the London sky and the city below, she'd felt so much smaller than she'd ever think she'd feel in her life.

Luke had graduated university and was on his way to receiving a second doctorate, Clyde had gone into a nursing degree and was now working at Holby City Hospital over the other side of the city, Maria was working in the States, Rani was traveling and Sky had graduated high school only a few months ago and was in her first year of university.

While everyone (except Maria of course) visited her regularly, it was just..hard.

It seemed that, jealousy if she really though deep down about the feelings that came to her, everyone was living while she was stationary, still. Stuck.

She didn't feel like being in her room today, something stirring within her soul and tugging on her heartstrings, like a voice telling her she has to be out on the open ward today of all days.

She knows that Sky will be visiting this afternoon may be, if she can escape her exams early enough for visiting hours, but other than that, she has no clue why she's out here.

Or why she feels like she needs to be out here, for that matter.

Hearing soft voices behind her, she turned her head slightly in interest, a journalist's ears are always open after all and she'd be damned if they knew she was drafting articles on any writable surface she could get her hands on, when her eyes catch him.

She's come to recognize when someone gives off the same energy as she once had. As Rose and notably, Martha and Donna had as well. At first, she honestly think he just might be the Doctor himself, snooping around craftily, sonic and all, but then she realizes.

He's too homely here in this hospital. He's not /the/ Doctor.  
He's one of them, a Companion. A friend.

She catches his eye and smiles and he stops.  
Then he walks over to her with a smile that melts her inside and offers out his hand.

"Hello, miss. Name's Graham. Graham O'Brien."

"Sarah Jane." Her voice replies, somehow not with the shake it's developed over the time she's been having treatment. "Sarah Jane Smith. It's nice to meet you Graham."

-

They're honestly not sure how long they talk for. After the initial introduction, words are pouring out of each other's mouths, mostly about the hospital and her treatment at first, but then the conversation shifts.

"Have we ever met before Miss Smith? Don't mean to be rude, but you seem familiar is all."

She smiles, shaking her head. "No, I believe we haven't Mr O'Brien, but I know a Companion when I see one. After all, I used to be one."

That's all it takes to get the ball rolling, his face lighting up in excitement.

"So you know the Doc, too, eh?"

"The Doctor knows many people, I just happen to be one of the ones he knew best."

She doesn't mean to bag, but can't help it, she did with Rose of course, back long before in one of his other forms than her own form she remembered, but she hoped he didn't get the wrong impression of her for some reason.

He chuckles suddenly, taking her out of her reverie. "What's so funny, Mr O'Brien?"

"Oh, it's just-" He grins a her. "I just can't imagine the Doc as a bloke is all, even if she's told us a hundred times she was one before."

Sarah's eyebrows (well, what's left of them since treatment began) almost fly off her head in shock, a rare emotion for a person in her career to feel. "He regenerated into a woman?"

"Aye, she fell out of the bloody sky into Sheffield, that's how we first met her."

Soon enough, Graham is recounting the whole story and she starts to tell some of her own, the skyline becoming dark with the pinks and purples of sunset and then, dark in the start of the night before a nurse is coming over to them, smiling at Graham regretfully and telling him it's time to go home and for herself to go back to her room for some rest.

"The Doc's gone on a trip or something and won't be back till whenever, I'd like to come back tomorrow of that's alright with you Miss Smith. Seems like we both need someone right now."

"Please, call me Sarah." She smiles back at him weakly. She doesn't know how he can look at her like this, but then again, he mentioned he'd been here before as a patient, so she really shouldn't care, her appearance being haggard looking or not. "I wouldn't mind that at all."

"Well then, tomorrow it is. I'll be on my way for now." He smiles warmly at her.

"Goodnight, Sarah."

"Goodnight, Graham."


End file.
